Stay
by KelseyO
Summary: "Rachel!" The voice surprises her; her name comes out as a sob, and it's female, and it sounds an awfully lot like Quinn Fabray's.  School shooting.  Faberry.  Oneshot.


**This was inspired by spoilers that may or may not be true.**

**If they're true, I'm assuming RIB will do it wrong.**

**If RIB does it right, I'm assuming they'll ignore the Faberry aspects.**

**Also, my first attempt at Rachel's perspective. Let me know how I did.**

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><p>Rachel Berry has always had an overactive imagination. It's why she can't watch scary movies , because then every sound in the house becomes an escaped asylum patient trying to break in or a vampire coming to kill her, and then she doesn't get enough sleep which means she has less energy in glee club, which is unacceptable.<p>

So when the Skanks walk into the cafeteria and each retrieve pistols from their jacket pockets, a part of her thinks she must be hallucinating. After all, she just watched the _One Tree Hill_ episode where Jimmy brings a gun to school and holds everyone hostage, so the intensely emotional themes portrayed in the episode are probably still on her mind.

But then people start screaming and the four girls all fire shots in various directions and the sudden cacophony is so loud that for a split second every system in Rachel's body comes to a screeching halt. She feels someone yanking on her hand and realizes Finn is trying to pull her off the bench and toward the throng of hysterical students trying desperately to make it out the doors.

She scrambles to her feet and they both run but soon she's being jostled by some freshmen Cheerios and she loses her grip on his hand just as another gunshot echoes brutally around the room. There's a distant thud and even more screaming and the crowd at the door is too dense and Rachel can't move and there's another loud bang and it's _so close_ to where she's standing that she jumps a little and now she's trembling from head to toe.

"BERRY!"

God knows what possesses her to turn around when someone barks her name, but before she can stop herself she looks back and finds herself face to face with the source of the chaos. One of the girls, whom she assumes is the leader of the Skanks, is glaring at her with what can only be described as a mixture of loathing and heinous pleasure.

The gun in her hands is pointing directly at Rachel.

Her breath catches in her throat and her eyes fix on the muzzle, and it occurs to her that this might be a good time to start pleading for her life, but all that makes it out of her throat is a tiny whimper.

"Wow," the girl says, her lips curving into a nasty smirk. "Rachel Berry isn't puking up a speech for once. If I'd known that all it took to shut you up was a _gun_…"

Rachel can hear people behind her still scurrying out the doors. She opens and closes her mouth a few times as she struggles to make sense of what's happening in front of her. "Please," she whispers, and she doesn't mean to let her bottom lip tremble or her eyes fill with tears because she knows it only makes her look weak and pathetic, but both happen anyway.

"Listen—I'm gonna help you out with something."

Rachel's heart is hammering in her chest.

"I know you got all these plans to be famous or whatever. Like, acting and stuff. And everyone knows that the best performances come from real experiences."

She swallows. A few shots ring out from the other end of the school.

The girl licks her lips. "In a few years, if somebody needs an actress to pretend to bleed to death, you're gonna be the first person they call."

And then the Skank's wrist tenses and her finger squeezes the trigger and there's a deafening bang and an unbearable explosion of pain in her left thigh and then she's on the ground and her skirt is soaked with sticky blood and her hands are coated in bright red as she clutches at the source of the agony.

She doesn't scream, even though she really wants to, because all oxygen has removed itself from her lungs. She's heaving for air and trying not to throw up because this pain is too much, worse than a million broken noses at once, and she lets out a small sob when the Skank crouches next to her.

"Good luck using your talent to get out of this one, freak." The girl spits in her face and the saliva mixes with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

And then, she's alone.

Rachel isn't sure if she's crying or just hyperventilating—or maybe a combination of the two—but she does know that she's shaking and starting to feel lightheaded. Weird sounds fill her ears; distorted screams, faraway gunshots, footsteps running back and forth. She can sense people sprinting by, probably too distracted by their own panic to realize she's still alive. Maybe they don't even see her at all.

She hears another person hurrying for the door, but then there's a gasp and what sounds like a strangled cry, and soon the footsteps are _right there_, next to her, and someone's heavy breathing is very close to her head.

"Rachel!"

The voice surprises her; her name comes out as a sob, and it's female, and it sounds an awfully lot like Quinn Fabray's.

She opens her eyes and sees the blond kneeling at her side, her normally calm hazel eyes terrified. They drift down Rachel's body to her leg, the source of the blood, and her expression shows almost as much pain as Rachel is currently feeling.

"Oh my God," she mutters over and over, her voice cracking a few times on the last word. She quickly shrugs out of her cardigan, twists it so it's long and thin, and then begins to tie it tightly around the wound.

A cry of pain bursts from Rachel's throat and Quinn's shaking hand is on her cheek instantly, brushing her sweat-dampened hair out of her face and rubbing her thumb back and forth. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she says before going back to the wound and pulling the cardigan even tighter around it.

Rachel yelps again and now both of Quinn's hands are wrapped around one of hers, squeezing for all she's worth, and the pressure actually helps take her mind off her leg just a little.

"Quinn," she wheezes, because it makes no sense that this girl is here with her right now, because the Skanks have guns and she should be running away to a safe place. "What are you doing?" She doesn't hear the answer, though, because everything is fuzzy all of a sudden and her eyes are closed again and she really wants to go to sleep.

"Rachel? Rach, stay with me."

She feels a clammy palm on her forehead and then on her cheek again and it gently taps her face and she almost opens her eyes but her energy is gone and she's starting to think it might not be so bad to just take a nap—

"Rachel, no! Stay awake!"

She's sinking lower and lower and everything around her is dark. She decides this is acceptable because healing takes energy so if she just sleeps for a little while, she will wake up recharged and ready to get better.

She lets go.

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><p>Rachel is having a very strange dream.<p>

She's had them before, of course—like the one where she followed the yellow brick road to Oz, only to find that Barbra Streisand was the wizard, or the one where she and Idina Menzel sang "Defying Gravity" on the moon wearing spacesuits—but this one is simply bizarre.

Quinn is screaming for help and her normally soft, delicate voice is loud and desperate. Wrong.

"_Rach, please, don't do this to me_…"

What is she doing? She doesn't understand what's going on.

She feels something in her hair, like fingertips brushing against her scalp, and then drops of wet start hitting her neck. This is odd because she knows you can't cry on your neck, which means they must be someone else's tears.

"_I love you so much…Please stay with me, Rachel. Please…"_

She's leaping over a large crater as she hits the highest note in the song and when she lands again her leg is engulfed in a fiery pain. Rachel stumbles and falls face-first to the ground, but instead of hitting moon dust she lands in a pool filled with lime slushy. She can't find the bottom and she swims as hard as she can but her leg is giving her hell and she can feel herself sinking.

A hand grabs her and begins pulling her out, and when she gets to the surface she realizes it's Quinn who's holding on to her. Once she makes it over the side she collapses in exhaustion and then Quinn is leaning over her, the girl's face contorted in anguish, but Rachel doesn't understand why she's so upset because she's out of the pool and everything is going to be okay.

"_You're gonna make it through." _Why is Quinn sobbing? _"You have to. Please, Rach. I love you, please…"_

This is officially the most peculiar dream she's ever had.

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><p>She's not sure where exactly she is but she's significantly more comfortable and she can hear faint, steady beeps around her, like she's on a spaceship or something.<p>

Somewhere far away, someone is yelling.

"_HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? YOU SHOULD HAVE PROTECTED HER. HOW COULD YOU JUST LEAVE HER BEHIND?"_

Rachel's never heard Quinn swear before. "Quinn, that is very inappropriate language," she scolds, but the blond doesn't seem to hear her.

"_I freaked, okay? I'm sorry! They had guns and I was scared and I thought she was behind me… I didn't mean for this to happen!"_ Finn is dressed like an Army soldier and his eyes are red and puffy and his hands are covered in blood.

"_SHE GOT _SHOT_, FINN. YOU CAN'T JUST SAY YOU'RE FUCKING SORRY LIKE THAT'S GOING TO MAKE IT ALL BETTER."_

Rachel gives her a look. "Seriously, Quinn, are the curse words really necessary?"

"_Quinn_—"

"_Get out of here."_

"_Just let me—"_

"_GET. THE FUCK. OUT."_

Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom appear in security guard uniforms and sing "Apologize" in harmony as they each grab one of Finn's arms and drag him away.

Now they're in the girl's bathroom and Quinn closes and locks the door. She turns to Rachel and she's wearing her Cheerios uniform, except it says 'NYADA' on the front and is decorated with the school's signature black and gold instead of the classic WMHS red and white. She takes her hand gently and intertwines their fingers.

"_I will never let anything happen to you again,"_ she says, looking deep into Rachel's eyes. _"I promise."_ She leans in and kisses her on the forehead, then yawns. _"Goodnight,"_ she whispers, and everything goes black.

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><p>Rachel opens her eyes.<p>

It's dark but as her vision adjusts she can see that she's in a hospital room; the light from the lamppost outside the window is just bright enough to illuminate the monitors and IV stand next to her bed.

Her leg is wrapped in thick bandages; her body feels like stone and her thoughts are slow and jumbled, like the time she got her tonsils out and her dads made her lie on the couch all day. She glances to her right and her heart skips a beat when she sees Quinn curled up in the armchair in the corner.

Rachel smiles a little. As she remembers her last dream, she summons the strength to lift her hand to her forehead. Square in the center, just barely noticeable, is a tiny patch of moisture.

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><p><strong>Rachel Berry dream sequences are a glorious amount of fun to write.<strong>

**Bialystock and Bloom are the two dudes from _The Producers_. There can never be too much Broadway in Rachel's subconscious.**

**Reviews are much appreciated. I promise I'm working on Pink 12. I just have Faberry ADD and oneshots are a nice change of pace. I will try to finish it in the next week or so, assuming that these next episodes of Glee don't lead me to an emotional/mental breakdown.**

**ALSO FABERRY HUG AND QUINN GAZING LONGINGLY AT RACHEL FTW.**


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